Key Roles and Activities of TT/KE/KT Professionals

Information

People working in TT/KE/KT are expected to be committed to the exchange of knowledge for the benefit of society; to operate with honesty and integrity; and display personal and professional credibility.

They are likely to be undertaking the following kinds of roles and activities (not a comprehensive list) using a combination of the broad competencies which are recognised by the global RTTP framework.

Partnership building

  • Building strategic partnerships with industry, businesses, and public organizations in regional, national or international contexts
  • Developing programmes of collaborative research and innovation between knowledge- based organisations and businesses
  • Establishing and managing centres for cooperative research and/or innovation with a translational focus

Managing partnering services

  • Running business or sector networks to encourage engagement between the knowledge base and partners
  • Managing consultancy and services/ facilities which transfer knowledge and know-how
  • Developing programmes of collaborative education and training between knowledge- based organisations and businesses
  • Managing B2B and U2B marketing campaigns

IP exploitation

  • Managing, advancing and de-risking knowledge assets such as inventions, innovations and intellectual property portfolios
  • Creating commercial intellectual property strategies leading to licensing intellectual property and creating spin-outs that create products and services
  • Providing legal advice or counsel on protecting inventions and innovations for example through patents, design rights, trademarks and copyright and other forms of non-formal intellectual property rights such as know-how

Knowledge economy

  • Building regional or national innovation infrastructure to promote economic development
  • Running incubators, science Parks and scale-up programmes
  • Raising and managing funding for translation and future utilization of knowledge and research
  • Raising and managing proof of concept, accelerator and venture capital funds.

Innovation leadership

  • Reshaping and restructuring organizations such as companies, universities and public bodies to optimize innovation and transfer/ exchange of knowledge/ technology
  • Training and developing people to become entrepreneurial and to gain skills for collaboration and transfer of knowledge and technology
  • Acting as public stewards of innovation for economic and societal benefit
  • Advocacy, awareness raising and lobbying in innovation, intellectual property and commercial research policy development